Sakue Shimohira speaks about her experiences as a victim of the Nagasaki atomic bomb + For the 64th Time: No More Nuclear War

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Look Back at the US Atomic Bombing 64 Years Later

Democracy Now!
August 10, 2009

This year marks the sixty-fourth anniversary of the US atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed over 150,000 people instantly. Commemorations this weekend in Japan and around the world marked the US bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then on August 9th, of Nagasaki. We play the report of Wilfred Burchett, the first journalist to make it into Hiroshima, as well as Anthony Weller, the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki after the bombing, and we hear from Hiroshima survivor Shigeko Sasamori. [includes rush transcript]

Anthony Weller, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who worked for the Chicago Daily News and was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki after the bombing.

Wilfred Burchett, Australian reporter and the first journalist to make it into Hiroshima after the bombing.

Shigeko Sasamori, Hiroshima survivor, one of the Hibakusha. She was a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She was one of twenty-four young Japanese women brought to New York by American journalist Norman Cousins for surgical reconstruction treatment after the bombing.

“For the 64th Time: No More Nuclear War”–A Roundtable Discussion on Disarmament

Democracy Now!
August 10, 2009

Sixty-four years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we host a roundtable discussion on the present nuclear landscape. We speak with nuclear physicist and disarmament activist Pervez Hoodbhoy, peace activist Frida Berrigan, and Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Over the next year, Ellsberg will release regular installments of his insider’s memoir of the nuclear era, “The American Doomsday Machine.” [includes rush transcript]

Frida Berrigan, Peace activist and senior program associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. Previously, she served for eight years as deputy director and senior research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute at the New School in New York City. Her latest article, appearing in Tom Dispatch, is called “For the Sixty-Fourth Time: No More Nuclear War.” See picture of Daniel Ellsberg holding a baby Frida Berrigan.

Daniel Ellsberg, the country’s best known whistleblower. In 1971 he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and the Washington Post. The 7,000-page document exposed the true story behind US decision making in the Vietnam War. He was charged with twelve felony counts, but they were dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him. He is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. He was once described by Henry Kissinger as “the world’s most dangerous man.” Over this next year he plans to release segments of his memoir in order to reveal the true history of the American nuclear era. The first part of it appeared on Truthdig and his website last week. It’s titled “Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years.” He is also the subject of a new documentary opening in New York next month called The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, Nuclear physicist and disarmament activist. He is chair of the Physics Department at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

All true America need to hang their heads in shame for what was done. As Gore Vidal has noted, the Japanese were already sing for peace at the time the bombs were dropped. Trueman wanted to shock the Russians. Truman is the one who started the cold war and squandered the lives and resources of the US, and which allowed the military industrial complex to take over.

Operation: #OneMoreVote

The FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, letting internet providers like Verizon and Comcast impose new fees, throttle bandwidth, and censor online content. But we can stop them by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We need one more vote to win in the Senate, and we’re launching an Internet-wide push to get it.

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